I must help him:
For churchmen, though they itch to govern all,
Are silly, woeful, aukward politicians:
They make lame mischief, though they mean it well:
Their interest is not finely drawn, and hid,
But seams are coarsely bungled up, and seen.
_Muf._ He'll tell you more.
_Dor._ I have heard enough already,
To make me loath thy morals.
_Bend._ [_To_ DOR.] You seem warm;
The good man's zeal perhaps has gone too far.
_Dor._ Not very far; not farther than zeal goes;
Of course a small day's journey short of treason.
_Muf._ By all that's holy, treason was not named:
I spared the emperor's broken vows, to save
The slaves from death, though it was cheating heaven;
But I forgave him that.
_Dor._ And slighted o'er
The wrongs himself sustained in property;
When his bought slaves were seized by force, no loss
Of his considered, and no cost repaid. [_Scornfully._
_Muf._ Not wholly slighted o'er, not absolutely.--
Some modest hints of private wrongs I urged.
_Dor._ Two-thirds of all he said: there he began
To shew the fulness of his heart; there ended.
Some short excursions of a broken vow
He made indeed, but flat insipid stuff;
But, when he made his loss the theme, he flourished,
Relieved his fainting rhetoric with new figures,
And thundered at oppressing tyranny.
_Muf._ Why not, when sacrilegious power would seize
My property? 'tis an affront to heaven,
Whose person, though unworthy, I sustain.
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